Mandy Macdonald is an Australian writer and musician living in Aberdeen who is trying to make sense of the 21st and earlier centuries. Her poems can be seen in many anthologies and journals – most recently Noon (Arachne, 2019), Multiverse (Shoreline of Infinity, 2019), The Curlew (Spring 2019) and The Poet’s Republic(Issue 7, 2019). Mandy writes in the strong hope that poetry can change the world, even just a little. When not writing, she makes music and gardens.
Siesta at the botanical gardens
Leafstorm of lorikeets,
a shock of green noise,
rips up the sky.
Starling chatter
of schoolchildren,
yellow-capped,
on the lawn. Birdless,
the bamboo glade rustles
and frets. Glistening silky husks
drop, tumble
like little paper skiffs
down the fountain’s stone curlicues.
Unkempt, autumnal, the grass
hides wonders. A tiny spider
explores her continents of green,
a banded wasp forages
among fallen twigs,
just by my grounded eye.
I frog-kick my way up
through fathoms of discarded dreams
to the leaf-litter of the day.
Mandy Macdonald